A MISSING sex offender who handed himself into police after an appeal on the Lancashire Telegraph website has been ordered to stay indoors at night.

Burnley Crown Court heard how Michael Andrew Smith, 30, had not told police where he was living, even though he was on the sex offenders register and should have done.

The defendant, who had also been subject to a 12-month suspended jail term, had walked into a police station in Leeds after his friend sent him a Facebook message, telling him he was wanted.

Jobless Smith, now of Granby Street, Burnley, had admitted failing to comply with the notification requirements of the register and had been committed for sentence by magistrates.

He was sentenced to a 30-day curfew, between 9pm and 6am, and was told to pay a fine of £5 for flouting the suspended sentence, which has now finished.

Prosecutor Stephen Parker said in November 2011, the defendant had been convicted of sexual assault and had been placed on the offenders’ register for 10 years.

He at first notified quite properly but when police visited his former Burnley address four times, last October, November and December, Smith was not at the address. He said he had moved to West Yorkshire and had tried to contact the police about his move.